How to format your references using the The Lancet Infectious Diseases citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for The Lancet Infectious Diseases. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author
1
Cohn MJ. Evolutionary biology: lamprey Hox genes and the origin of jaws. Nature 2002; 416: 386–7.
A journal article with 2 authors
1
Chameides WL, Bergin M. Climate change. Soot takes center stage. Science 2002; 297: 2214–5.
A journal article with 3 authors
1
Carbotte SM, Small C, Donnelly K. The influence of ridge migration on the magmatic segmentation of mid-ocean ridges. Nature 2004; 429: 743–6.
A journal article with 7 or more authors
1
Kozlova E, Chernysh A, Moroz V, Gudkova O, Sergunova V, Kuzovlev A. Transformation of membrane nanosurface of red blood cells under hemin action. Sci Rep 2014; 4: 6033.

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book
1
You H, Jianjuan X, Xin G. Radar Data Processing with Applications. Singapore: John Wiley &;#38; Sons Singapore Pte. Ltd, 2016.
An edited book
1
Gill TL. Functional Analysis and the Feynman Operator Calculus. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2016.
A chapter in an edited book
1
Freeman R. The Role of the Adrenal Glands in the Hyperandrogenism Associated with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. In: Pal L, ed. Polycystic Ovary Syndrome: Current and Emerging Concepts. New York, NY: Springer, 2014: 71–80.

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Blog post
1
Andrew E. Toddler Battles Xenomorphs in Amazing P5000 Powerloader Costume. IFLScience. 2014; published online March 12.

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report
1
Government Accountability Office. FCC: The Local Multipoint Distribution Service. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1997.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation
1
Manzano D. The benefits of fall intervention programs for older adults: A grant proposal. 2010.

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article
1
Brantley B. What Would a Modern Sophocles Do? Perhaps He Would Pucker Up. New York Times. 2016; : C5.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

This sentence cites one reference 1.
This sentence cites two references 1,2.
This sentence cites four references 1–4.

About the journal

Full journal titleThe Lancet Infectious Diseases
AbbreviationLancet Infect. Dis.
ISSN (print)1473-3099
ISSN (online)1474-4457
ScopeInfectious Diseases

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